THE IMPERIALIST
INDOCHINA Liberation forces storm the citadel in Hué. DEBACLE by PIERRE ROUSSET The puppet president Lon Nol has fled the Cambodian capital, whose liberation is imminent. In South Vietnam, in a period of three weeks the Saigon army has collapsed in the Central Highlands, in the northern provinces, and along the central coastline, abandoning several thousands of millions of dollars worth of military equipment and losing scores of thousands of men. The liberated zones have been vastly extended and now cover 75 percent of South Vietnam, even according to Western estimates; included in the liberated areas are the major cities of the South with the exception of Saigon. Several thousand people have risen up or have joined the zones of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. In face of the rout of their forces, Washington and its local instruments have been struck by a paralysis that is disturbing to those who have placed their hopes in the United States as the "policeman of the imperialist world." In one month, the Indochinese revolution has won crucial victories that mark a decisive turning point in the regional situation. This turn is opening the final phase of the fight for the liberation of Indochina from the American imperialist grip. The suddenness and rapidity of the upheaval that has just occurred have surprised those who had not recognized — or did not want to recognize - the contradictions that were progressively undermining the puppet regime from within. Consequently, a veritable international press campaign, violently anticommunist, is being orchestrated: Thie's debacle is said to be the result of the weakness of American aid, Hanoi's violation of the Paris accords, and the communist "steamroller" from the North in face of which the South Vietnamese population is fleeing, "voting with their feet" against the red It is not yet time to draw an initial overall balancesheet of the offensive now under way. The situation remains too much in flux. But some points can be made about the processes through which the puppet collapse in Indochina is occurring and a response can thus be made to the poisonous campaign being waged in the Western world.
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INDOCHINA The disintegration of the puppet army There are four elements that shed real light on the character of the defeat of the Saigon army. *Contrary to what officials in Washington have tried to make people believe, the material military potential of the puppet army remains vastly superior to that of the revolutionary forces. In principle, the puppet army is invincible — with its more than one million men (on paper), the third-largest air force in the world, a formidable maritime and river fleet, and artillery unequaled on the "other side." Of course, the People's Liberation Armed Forces have been able to improve their materiel, especially in the southern regions. But even according to the estimates of the CIA, quoted by American congressmen, U.S. aid to Thieu since the signing of the Paris accords has been two to four times larger than the aid the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has received from China and the USSR. And the Pentagon has ultimately had to recognize that the Saigon regime has not been strangled by a drop in financial and military supplies: The credits for this fiscal year (already approved by the Congress) have not yet been used up and the available stocks of fuel, ammunition, and spare parts were far from fully utilized. (See Le Figaro, March 29-30, 1975.) *There was not, and there has still not yet been, any PRG military offensive similar to that waged in the spring of 1972. That was a general offensive involving guerrilla forces and regular and regional troops during which long and hard battles took place. During the initial phase of the current fighting (from the taking of the provincial capital of Phuoc Binh in January to the taking of Ban Me Thuot in March), only regional and local troops were used by the liberation forces in their main attacks. During the second phase (after Thieu's decision in midMarch to evacuate the cities of the Central Highlands, Pleiku, and Kontum), regular divisions played an active role in the northern provinces and a long the coast. But they hardly had to fight! The Saigon troops disbanded when the first shots were fired, or sometimes simply at the announcement that the liberation forces were about to arrive. *It was this phenomenon of disintegration of the puppet army that overturned the plans of the Saigon general staff. It appears that the notion of a retreat and a reorganization of the military system had begun to be considered last summer. In any case, the decision to withdraw from the Central Highlands was made on March 14, before any new cities had been attacked. For Thieu, the Cambodian sifuation confirmed 4
NORTH VIETNAM QUANG TRI LAOS PHO SEN CAMBODIA CARLAC SOUTH VIETNAM Shaded areas show liberated zones.
that he could not hope for an increased U.S.
commitment. And the fall of Ban Me Thuot illustrated the danger that puppet divisions might be cut off from their rear areas and then destroyed. That had to be avoided; troops had to be regrouped in areas in which their land and water supply lines could not be cut off: the southern part of the country and the coast.
The retreat was supposed to stop there; but in reality, that retreat became the signal for a rout, a surprise to all the military experts and advisers. *The debacle of the puppet army is all the more significant in that it involves "elite" units, such as the ones that had been holding Quang Tri and Hue and were later withdrawn to Da Nang: the First Infantry Division and the Marines. As for the paratroopers, they had already been withdrawn by Thieu to protect the presidential palace from enemies ... and friends. It was the troops that had been considered the only "good ones" - the only ones that were supposedly well motivated and effec-
BEVOLUTION tive — who robbed, murdered, kidnapped the wives of their officers, and fought with each other to evacuate the threatened zones as quickly as possible. The rout was so thorough that the PRG was able to seize considerable military materiel intact, notably 200-300 airplanes and helicopters with all their equipment, some of which had been on the runways with full gasoline tanks, ready to take off. The puppet army was not beaten after hard battles in which the material superiority of the adversary was finally decisive. Nobody tried to defend Da Nang, even after March 26, when Thieu issued a solemn call to his troops to "hold on." And yet R would have been possible to make the h Da Nang last for weeks and to tryto long battle to rally public opinion 1 the C States. What happened was thated decomposed. The problem is p composition is the product of + decay of the regime. The regime undermined from within a hurry to effect a relative he she ones l What seems very striking today and contradictions of the policy at the time of thee
Disengagement, Washington sought to carry neocolonialist policy, but was fosced to do this after recognizing that its previous strategy of military escalation had failed. That recognition itself amounted to a real deterioration of the relationship of forces in Indochina; at the same time, Washington had t try to rapidly transform the artificial econ social base of the puppet regime trialization accelerated by injec capital - and this while Thieu's po lacked credibility. The partial success of the policies of "pacification," "forced urbanization, strength of the military might brought to bear against the Indochinese peoples, and the scope of the means committed to continuing support to the puppet ad ministration and its military and police appe all prevented the PRG from being al victory before first undermining fr midable creation of American inte by the Thieu regime. The situatio otogic weakness into which American imperia had been thrown by the struggle of the Indochinese peoples, the internal contradictions of the Saigon regime, the strengthening of the liberated zones that was made possible by the halt of the bombing, and Washington's international difficulties combined to put the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian revolutionaries in a favorable position to be able to do this. Such was the framework of struggle born of the signing of the Paris accords on January 27, 1973. It took two years for the process then set in motion to reach maturity. In fact, if was a combination of processes: a military process combining the PRG's policies of "fraternization" and graduated responses; a political process challenging Thieu's war policy, denouncing repression, and struggling for democratic rights; an economie process counterposing the reconstruction ofthe liberated zones to the outbreak of mands on the part of many sectors of the population. During these two years Thieu demonstrated his inability to win the war he was conducting o hold the situation in Saigon. As the political gure that was the keystone of the regime upon which Washington was basing itself, Thieu is no longer in position to survive. may already have his bags packed in i for following national Salvation. Ky was the strongAmericans from 1965 to 1967; then he
-came Thie's vice president, only to disappeg from the political scene in 1971. He is kaa September-October despite the cries of alarm from the right-wing opposition. Today the generals, the Senate, and the archbishop of Saigon are asking for the departure of the puppet president. But the chances for a "Thieu regime without Thieu" are presently very slim. The economic recession in Saigon has deepened sharply. Panic is beginning to overtake bourgeois circles, which are leaving for abroad. The military command is completely disorganized and the troops are probably demoralized. The religious oppositions are not following the right;
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INDOCHINA on the contrary, they are making overtures to the PRG. The Cao Dai hierarchy, whose "spiritual capital" is Tay Ninh (encircled by the liberation forces), has advised the faithful to remain neutral in the fighting but to stay where they are and not flee toward Saigon. Senator Vu Van Mau, a leader of the Buddhist organization Forces of National Reconciliation (linked to the An Quang pagoda), has stated that his forces have been allowed to keep their committees active in the newly liberated territories. Madame Ngo Ba Than, a leader of the "third force" Popular Movement for the Application of the Paris Accords who was once placed under house arrest, says that she does not intend to participate in the government reorganization, that this is the affair of the "first force, " that is, the Saigon forces. Finally, General Minh, one of the personalities most played up by American liberals, who could try to play a Bonapartist role between the factions of the opposition, is taking a wait-and-see attitude and seems not to know which bandwagon to jump on. Above all, the specific weight of the PRG has been suddenly increased in South Vietnam. To be sure, the PRG has declared itself prepared to negotiate, but only after the overthrow of the present regime and its replacement by an administration that would agree to apply the Paris accords, It is continuing the vigorous offensive, which makes it probable today that the liberated zones now include nearly half (or more) of the population. And the refugees? is this analysis refuted by the flight of refugees and the scenes of panic that television crews have filmed? Not at all. The real character of the flight must be understood. The March 27 International Herald Tribune, basing itself on interviews taken by reporters of the New York Times, headlined one of its articles "Cause of Refugee Exodus Panic, Not Politics. " The article noted that "in the course of recent weeks correspondents of the New York Times have interviewed hundreds of refugees fleeing from various parts of the country. " To the question, "Why are you running?" most responded: "Because everyone is leaving. "Nobody answered that it was because he or she hated communism or was afraid of it. Many were afraid that they would be exposed to death and destruction if they stayed behind. ... fear of the unknown seems to be even greater. . . . For the rich and middle classes, for the merchants and businessmen, there is a special reason for flight.... The Americans and their puppets have been able to create collective panic in many cities. And panic has surely been created: by the transformation in 6 past years of every newly liberated zone or locality into a "free fire" and bombing zone, by the psychosis of combat, by direct incitement. In Pleiku it was loudspeaker trucks organized by the army that touched off panic by driving through the city screaming "Flee, flee!" even though no fighting was going on at the time. In Hué Thie's soldiers entered each house, rifles in hand, to force the civilians to evacuate; otherwise, the soldiers said, "the bombs and mortar will kill you. " (An inhabitant of the city who stayed behind recounted this to the NLF press agency. See the Paris daily Libération, April 2, 1975.) In Nha Trang, Agence France-Presse reported, inhabitants took refuge on a nearby uninhabited island during the occupation of the city. They were afraid of rockets. Others fled the gangs of puppet soldiers who were pillaging and murdering. In addition, the poisonous campaign was going on: "The communists will pierce the hands of all young girls, " and so on. The panic and exodus are the final products of the American imperialists' policy of "forced urbanization. " But while they have been able to incite panic, they have not created by this means a broad and popular social base for their system in Indochina. And while those who are leaving in the collective moves are not necessarily only those who fear reprisals because they collaborated, tortured, murdered, and profited from the presence of the Americans and their henchmen, if must not be forgotten that most of the inhabitants of these zones have remained behind, or have returned already, or are in process of returning. Nor must it be forgotten that the liberation of the cities was made possible by the combined action of the liberation armed forces and the organized working population. It was also for this reason that Hue, Da Nang, and Nha Trang fell without big fighting. And this leaves aside the massive defection of the puppet army. If this is not the case, how is it to be explained that immediately upon the arrival of the liberation forces the cities were covered with the banners of the PRG? In the April 4 Le Monde Jean Thoraval wrote, on the basis of information received in Hanoi, that "intense psychological work had been directed toward the South Vietnamese masses, in parficular during the past two years. In many provincial capitals clandestine militias... probably came out of the shadows to aid the Liberation Armed Forces. " Moreover, the press in Hanoi has reported that in Da Nang it was the workers who were the backbone of these militias. Finally, the photographs coming from the newly liberated cities depict animated streets and not deserted and empty byways. The American paralysis One of the keys to the American policy in regard to the Paris Accords was the establishment of "three-
sided peaceful coexistence. " The failure of the previous strategy of escalation required the recognition of the People's Republic of China. In turn, this recognition required that sooner or later the United States would have to limit its direct intervention. The support Peking extended to Nixon allowed Washington to hope that the isolation of the Indochinese revolutionaries would be such that they would "moderate" their ambitions. But the analysis of the regional relationship of forces prevailing at the time of the signing of the accords, the multiplication of the difficulties American imperialism was facing because of the rise of the class struggle internationally, and the economic crisis that was on the agenda made it possible to predict that nothing of the kind would happen. And, in fact, nothing of the kind did happen. The dialectic of the Indochinese revolution was confirmed. This is especially illustrated by the events of the past several months. We have seen a combined offensive in Cambodia and Vietnam, an offensive unleashed at the beginning of January. By highlighting the American paralysis the impending fall of Phnom Penh, rapidly seen as inevitable, acted as a catalyst to the demoralization of the puppet forces. In like manner, the collapse of the puppet army in South Vietnam will deal the coup de grâce to the Lon Nol regime. Already, the echo of the advance of the Indochinese revolution can be heard beyond the frontiers of the former French colonies. It is especially perceptible in Thailand, where the (rightist) government of Kukrit Promoi is asking for the withdrawal of the U.S. forces based in the country and where chronic political instability has succeeded the previous pro-American military dictatorship. The imperialist debacle in Indochina will accelerate the new rise of class struggle throughout the region. More profoundly, Indochina, along with the Arab East, has revealed the new weaknesses of American imperialism on the international arena. The Indochinese revolution has most certainly been the bridge between the revolutionary wave that followed the second world war and the revolutionary wave that is taking shape today. The Indochinese socialist revolution In December 1972, the International Executive Committee (IEC) of the Fourth International adopted a resolution on the signing of the Paris accords (which had yet to take place at the time). After analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the position of the
Indochinese revolution and the nature of the draft accords being negotiated, the IC concluded that the signing of the accords would involve a withdrawal of U.S. armed forces from Vietnam and the halting of bombing of the North and South, (which) would in any event constitute a shift in the relationship of forces in favor of the Vietnamese revolution. ... but such a withdrawal would not in itself (guarantee) the victory of the permanent revolution in South Vietnam. It would only (imply) that the process of this revolution could develop with a reduced, but not eliminated, foreign counterrevolutionary interference. " The motor force of the struggle lay in the maintenance of a "situation... in South Vietnam... of dual power from top to bottom. -but dual power that has not yet been extended to the major cities of the country. " It was on the basis of this analysis that the resolution predicted the axis of the coming struggles in Vietnam: deepening of the agrarian reform, struggle of the exploited masses in defense of their living standards, struggle for the release of political prisoners and for democratic rights. And it also predicted the probable results of these struggles: the "disintegration of the puppet military and administrative apparatus under the combined impact of the processes we have just described. " At the same time, it wos stressed that the essential feature would be the maintenance and strengthening of the armed forces of the proletariat and peasantry. More than two years later, it can be said that the analysis our movement made of the relationship of forces and the process of coming struggles has beer. confirmed. This does not mean that the victory of the permanent revolution in Vietnam and throughout Indochina has already been completely achieved. The struggle goes on. But the Indochinese revolution has just taken a very big step forward. That is what we must hail above all! FOR THE INDOCHINESE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION! April 3, 1975
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